Seal of Baptism

Seal Of Baptism.

Baptism was often called, in the early Church, "the seal of the Lord," "the seal of Christ," with allusion, perhaps, to Ephesians 1:13: 4:30; Joh 3:33, and other similar passages, especially 2Co 1:21-22. This use of the word is taken from the circumstance that the stamp or impression of a seal upon anything was regarded as a mark of property, or a token that it belonged to a certain owner, namely, the person whose seal it bore. Thus Gregory. of Nazianzum (Orat. 40) calls baptism the seal and sign of sovereignty, or the token that the baptized person was subject to the dominion and government of God, and lived to obey his will. See Riddle, Christian Antiq. p. 484.